Cooking is a creative endeavor – beginning with the selection of foods to prepare. Coming home from the farmer’s market with perfect vegetables, herbs, and fruits is so satisfying.
This means that my kitchen is a sacred space that although simple, it has the basics to cook all the fresh food everything we bring home: a stove, sink, pans and cooking utensils. It has always seemed satisfactory, but today I was inspired to think more about the kitchen after touring the Museo Robert Brady in Cuernavaca.
Brady was an American artist and designer who had a home in Cuernavaca. He was a painter and world traveler who had an unerring eye and strong appetite for collecting. After his death in 1986, he left his home and art collections to the State of Morelos.
His home is the colonial style, with many levels and gardens. They are all exquisite, but the kitchen made me stop and stay awhile.
A modest gas stove is flanked by the traditional wood-fired stove (on the right). I could imagine beans being slowly cooked in the ceramic pot. Brady selected Talavera tiles for the walls and counters and painted the walls a rich blue and cheery yellow. There are sweet little garlands decorating the central cooking area, almost like a shrine to the cook.
In the “less is more” philosophy, there is not a lot of kitchen stuff, but there is vibrant color as a background to the collections of Talavera plates and glassware.
I could imagine making large feasts in this kitchen.
Feeling grateful and inspired!
#Mexico
#artand cooking
Looking out the car window for something to entertain us was a good way to pass the hours. The giant jackrabbit signs perched on hills above Route 66 for Jack Rabbit Trading Post were a spectacular sight. They taunted us for miles while we imagined all the wonderful curiosities that the Jack Rabbit Trading Post held – I mean, arts and crafts – I was THERE! And then finally, we would spot the one that read, Here it is! Oh, the pain as we sped by each and every one.
This has been so woven into our collective culture that artist 
Continuing upward, 
The artist has reimagined the entire small floor as a parlor, perhaps inspired by the 1901 photo when parlors were a means of civil discourse. The walls have been papered in a moody dark forest scene with birds and forest plants – the settee has an elaborate snake coiled, ready to strike. The table has been set for tea with a tea set that has also been elaborately decorated with the dark, flora, and fauna of the jungle. The artists’ work is influenced by her native country, Columbia, along with the symbolism of 19th Century opulence and what it took from nature.
took over the entire space. The glass viewers placed in front of the windows invited viewers to look down over the scenery below – the glass created a funhouse viewpoint of the scenery below, reinforcing the idea of being in another world. 
The artists shared this additional information about this work in their interview: “The stairwell allows for a slow and intimate reading of the work as the viewer ascends or descends the stairway. Repetition is a thread that runs through all our work, from drawings to installation. We feel that when you are dreaming about something you think about it over and over, sometimes for years.”
Today, over 47 years after this song first broadcast on the airwaves, we see the same situation where we can 
Altogether, eight artists are exhibiting work that could be wildly diverse without this premise. For instance, in Jinkook Hwang’s “Sushi Nam Yeo” series, rice is seen as the object of happiness and love, stemming from his cultural background. In “Couple Sushi,” the artist draws a man and woman resting on a bed of rice that has been magnified to signify its importance in his life.
